SUN BLOCK: Technologies that block sunlight, such as those that mimic volcanic eruptions, should remain in the public domain, argues at least one would-be geoengineer.
Image: flickr/kahunapulej
LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif. -- Researchers working on a technology they say could stop global warming want the government to keep it out of private hands, a lead investigator said this week.
David Keith, a Harvard University professor and an adviser on energy to Microsoft founder Bill Gates, said he and his colleagues are researching whether the federal government could ban patents in the field of solar radiation.
The technology, also known as geoengineering, involves a kind of manipulation of the climate. Shooting sulfur -- a reflective material -- into the stratosphere could compensate for the warming effect of carbon dioxide and cool the planet, Keith said.
It could be very effective but also has the potential to provoke conflict between nations, Keith said.
"This is technology that allows any country to affect the whole climate in gigantic ways, which has literally potential to lead to wars," Keith said. "It has this sort of giant and frightening leverage."
Keith spoke about the technology and his work on climate and energy Monday at Fortune magazine's Brainstorm Green conference. The Harvard professor of applied physics and public policy runs the philanthropic Fund for Innovative Energy and Climate Research.
Gates began funding that group out of his personal wealth after meeting with Keith and other advisers on climate. The fund, which has spent $4.6 million since 2007, is bankrolling the research into solar radiation.
Keith began studying solar radiation about 20 years ago, "when no one else was working on it," he said. Now others are investigating it, "the taboo has been broken and there's suddenly a fair amount of research happening and people are beginning to think more seriously about it."
Could the government ban patents?
With people talking about it more openly, some researchers believe it's time to make sure precautions are taken to prevent international conflict. Some of his colleagues last week traveled to Washington, D.C., where they discussed whether the U.S. Patent Office could ban patents on the technology, Keith said.
"We think it's very dangerous for these solar radiation technologies, it's dangerous to have it be privatized," Keith said. "The core technologies need to be public domain."
Those familiar with patent rules, he said, described it as mostly uncharted territory. "There's not much legal precedent," Keith said. "Nuclear weapons are a partial precedent." The United States could not ban patents in other countries but has influence, he explained.
"Patents are mostly symbolic in this area anyways," he said. "The issue is to try and find ways to lower potential tensions between countries around these technologies by sending signals that it's going to be as transparent as possible."
In addition to potentially stoking international political problems, the technology carries other risks. The particles could hold the Earth's temperatures constant, Keith said, but that has side effects.
"If you keep increasing the amount of carbon dioxide, and you keep also increasing the amount of sulfur in the stratosphere, you can hold the surface temperature constant," Keith said. "All sorts of other things begin to go more and more wrong as you have more and more CO2 in the atmosphere.
"So this is not a perfect substitute," Keith said, "but it might be a very effective way to reduce risk over the next half-century."
The work on solar radiation is one part of energy research Keith is involved in. He also runs a startup called Carbon Engineering, which is trying to build the hardware to capture carbon out of the air. The company has received about $3.5 million from Gates and has spent about $6 million total.
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14 Comments
Add CommentThis seems like something we should be banning outright, not just banning patents on related technology.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Shooting sulfur into the stratosphere.." ?!
The natural processes effected by that couldn't be extraordinarily varied and vastly integrated.
A few decades ago, climate scientists were seriously advocating global climate engineering efforts designed to halt impending, catastrophic global cooling. They proposed spreading soot on the ice caps, manufacturing and releasing massive quantities of greenhouse gasses to hold in solar energy, even orbiting mirror arrays to direct solar energy towards the Earth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat would now be the result, had global resources been diverted to such foolish enterprise?
We lack the knowledge and wisdom to attempt global scale climate engineering now, as we did then. We invite disaster to believe and act otherwise.
The global cooling idea arose from a very limited amount of research that was highly publicized in the press. To my knowledge, it was never the consensus of a majority of scientist studying climate.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI doubt that patents or a consensus opinion of scientists studying climate will dissuade governments or their militaries from deploying geoengineering technologies to achieve critical tactical objectives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this$260B spent and emissions up 7%. Proof positive that Wind & Solar energy are just a bait-and-switch SCAM, designed to INCREASE reliance on Fossil Fuel energy while blocking the ONLY Feasible alternative to Fossil Fuels, namely Nuclear Energy and of course giving politicians and gullible greenie suckers an opportunity to claim that they are doing something - don't want anyone to know that there actual achievement for $260B is ZIP - ZERO - NIL. A total waste of money.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis looks like a bit of sensationalism, someone wanted to get in the news, and he succeeded.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe value of patents is often disputed, but does anyone seriously believe that drug companies would ever do research without them?
Rumor has it that chem-trails are created to cool the planet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOf course purposely putting pollution into the air, ignoring the real problem of CO2, is a bad idea, especially in a collapsing economic time when we may not be able to produce ever-increasing pollution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut why do we only call the bad ideas geoengineering? Why doesn't it also include any intentional action which alters the planet, such as wind and solar power to keep some CO2 out of the air, in lieu of intelligent action such as reducing our population to reduce pollution output?
And shouldn't such action also include iron fertilization of the oceans? What was so wrong with that idea? We already have a lot of ships floating around and I'm sure we can find some iron, though I've never heard what form is needed. Sure, some phytoplankton gets eaten by animal types, but they get eaten also etc., much of their carbon still going to the ocean floor.
Is it possible that the powers that be could be destroying the land we grow our food on in order to stop our ability to self sustain? The high levels of aluminium that are found as a result of these 'chemtrails' (no conspiracy here..the facts are in a test tube) are astounding and toxic. However, geo-engineers have developed genetically modified seeds that can handle high levels of aluminium and barium.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEverything you could want to know about David Keith and Geoengineering:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGeoengineering 101 – Here comes the sun
http://rezn8d.net/2011/12/15/south-carolina-chemtrails-massive-geoengineering/
Geoengineering 201 – Chemtrails, Contrails, and Global Dimming
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://rezn8d.net/2012/01/19/geoengineering-201-chemtrails-contrails-and-global-dimming/
Chemtrails & Climate Change
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://rezn8d.net/2012/03/07/chemtrails-climate-change/
This is the first positive thing I have heard from David Keith, geoengineering should be banned, in all forms. No government should be allowed to participate in geoengineering or weather modification; I hear no calls to ban corporations from cloud seeding, snowpack augmentation, hail mitigation, or cloud ionization! Further, what impact does the Pacific ocean (garbage patch) gyre have on the water evaporation cycle? Companies are modifying the weather already, his call for a ban is laughable, though severely needed. Ban ALL forms of atmospheric modification, before a tipping point occurs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://rezn8d.net/2011/11/28/weather-modification-101-100-years-of-cloud-seeding/
I think that is is crazy to patent weather. It is something that is a natural resource to everyone. It is not for the betterment of mankind or humanity if the weather is in control of business corporations. This kind of unfair power distribution will ensure that there will always be suffering of the weaker. This is something that is a dangerous thought and I am afraid of this happening.
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